For what its worth the arctic sea ice area has expanded at least by 700,000 square kilimeters since the same time last year.
Here’s the problem as I see it:
There is a fuck of a lot of evidence that the stuff we’re doing that releases shitloads of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere thus causes the average temperature of same to increase. However, this evidence is awfully hard for laypeople to understand and interpret, and t also suggests that we need to start giving up our comfortable fossil-fuel lifestyle, not to mention consuming less energy in general. Some people are connected to the oil and coal industries, and don’t want to decrease their profits; a good many people take cues from them, and don’t really think very much about what they’re being told. Some people genuinely feel that the connection is unproven and the risk is overblown, and think that actions taken to oppose climate change hurt more than they help.
It’s a complicated issue, and there are good, honest people and complete douches on both sides. That’s not to say that there’s really a whole lot of debate here, of course. When virtually every properly-credentialed scientist in the field who isn’t being paid by a vested interest in the matter agrees that human actions are making the world warmer, that certainly makes me inclined to think that they’re right. That sounds like an appeal to authority and an appeal to numbers, but appealing to authority isn’t a fallacy if the authority is actually relevant, and I’m not understating this: most of the people qualified to discuss this in (I gotta admit, excruciatingly boring, despite the end result of lots of people and other organisms possibly dying) detail agree on it, and that’s a strong indication that they’re probably right. Not proof, but certainly something to think about.
Just lighting a cigarette makes the world warmer. The real question is whether human actions are causing warming that will have a large negative impact, let alone a signficiant impact. That’s a different issue, and there are plenty of “properly-credentialed” scientists who dispute it.
Which, again, few people seem willing to debate, instead preferring to say there isn’t such a thing at all. You personally are the most abject objector on the boards, so it seems rather odd for you to say that out of the blue.
But the only thing you have to go on, either way, is the experts’ expected rate of warming and what effects that is likely to have (raised sea levels, increased droughts in some areas, increased floods in others, expansion into the North, etc.) and whether it looks like a better deal to handle these issues as they come up and/or to try and stem the problem as far in as possible.
Whatever. I concede there’s a decent chance that increased CO2 emissions will have a small warming effect. Even Professor Lindzen estimated climate sensitivity at 1.0C, and he’s a noted skeptic, no?
And there are thousands of times as many who don’t. From different countries, walks of life and social circles.
Yet they are all in an evil cabal set on deceiving us… for what again?
And Brazil84, the lone bulwark against the tide!
The Stern Repot is a real outlyer when it comes to this stuff, and has been heavily critizied for flawed methodology. We’ve debated it before on this board - search for it.
And you can reject the argument that cutting CO2 will hurt the economy all you want, but that won’t change the fact that it will. There are no miracle bullets waiting around the corner that will magically give us clean energy for the same cost we pay now. The only way to make serious cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to is scale back our energy usage or make radical, wholesale changes to nuclear power.
There are some bright spots on the horizon - plug-in hybrids, new solar technologies, etc. But none of them are going to make a huge dent in CO2 emissions for a long time. This is just reality.
The only way you can possibly hope to make the kind of greenhouse gas cuts that advocates like Al Gore want is to institute a global carbon tax, and make it stick. Good luck with that.
Going past the issue of whether global warming is happening (it most likely is), and whether it’s partially the fault of humans (it most likely is), let’s try and talk intelligently and rationally about what to do about it. Because I never hear advocates really addressing this issue very well. There’s lots of handwaving about carbon offsets, or CFL bulbs, and ‘Kyoto’. Left unaddressed is the fact that none of this will make a dent in the problem.
And of course, the elephants in the room are China and India and the other Asian tigers. We can cut our use of fossil fuels all we want, and all that will do is drive prices down and make it available to other countries at a lower price, which will stimulate use of it there.
The start of a solution can be found in this statement - we are going to burn every drop of petroleum that’s in the ground until the cost of burning it exceeds the cost of alternatives. That’s the simple reality of the situation. Therefore, calls to solve the problem through ‘responsibility’, conservation and other similar measures will do essentially nothing.
If you really want to combat global warming, it seems to me there are several viable options - one is to impose a global carbon tax. This will require tough measures like trade sanctions (HEAVY trade sanctions, or even blockades) on countries that do not comply. It also seems to me that there is absolutely zero chance of this happening. There are too many vested interests who would be damaged by such a policy.
Another way to solve the problem is to develop ways to sequester carbon and/or scrub it out of the air. That will raise costs, but at least it has a chance of getting some kind of global financing regime in place to pay for it.
Yet another way is to develop technologies that allow for power generation at lower cost than fossil fuels. Then you won’t need intervention by governments - everyone will switch over voluntarily.
Another option is to do nothing. If we’re past peak oil, the price will continue to rise, and people will switch to alternatives and conserve voluntarily. Including in Asia. In the meantime, you continue research into alternative fuel sources, and promote the use of energy sources that already exist and are competitively priced (mainly wind and nuclear today - perhaps solar in a few more years).
This last option is almost certainly what’s going to happen. Despite all the lip service politicians make about wanting to do something, none have actually taken steps that seriously address the problem. Canada ratified Kyoto years ago, and our CO2 emissions have gone up faster than most countries, including the U.S. It’s easy to sign a paper - it’s a lot harder to sign a law which seriously affects the pocketbooks of your constituents.
We can do some smart things in the meantime - for example, Alberta should most definitely build a nuclear reactor to provide power for the oil sands - it’s almost a perfect application for nuclear, and it would dramatically cut the CO2 footprint of Alberta oil.
But there’s never going to be a worldwide program to dramatically cut CO2 through voluntary restrictions in the use of petroleum.
No, efficiency and energy independence are worth what they cost, regardless of whether some magical mitigation of the IR absorbance of the gases we release will come along or not.
So, you see, even if I’m wrong, we get energy efficiency and energy independence out of the deal, which our grandchildren will thank us for even if they think I was a bit silly with all my warnings about IR-absorbing gases.
But if brazil84 is wrong, his grandchildren will spit on his grave. And I’d consider bequeathing a flagon of urine to my own grandchildren to add to it.
And, incidentally, even I don’t think it’s realistic to stabilise CO2 at anywhere below around 550ppm, which will still cause a world of pain even in highly optimistic, low sensitivity models. But there’s all kinds of policies I advocate despite their abhorrence to mainstream politicians. One can only hope that enough people knocking their heads against a wall will bring it down eventually.
But you can’t get there with ‘efficiency’. Not today, not tomorrow, not any time soon. The only way to get there is to spend a bundle on money to change the infrasdtructure over to nuclear, or to cut back drastically on consumption.
You also assume that we wouldn’t be seeking efficiency anyway. Energy costs money. There is already plenty of incentive to use it efficiently, and it’s growing every day. But if you mandate efficiency, you’ll either not get it, or you’ll force companes and taxpayers to spend far more on it than they believe it’s worth. And since you can’t convince China, India, and Russia to also expend exhorbtant sums to be more efficient, you’ll put yourself at a competitive disadvantage against them. Your goods will be more expensive, and you’ll lose market share. You may find yourself marginally more energy independent, but greatly more dependent on the rest of the world for everything else.
I’ll bet your kids will love that.
In the worst case scenario, if you are wrong, the world is thrown into a massive depression; millions of people die; and the world as a whole misses opportunities to develop technologies that would have dramatically improved the lives of billions of people.
Anyway, exactly what policy are you proposing?
It amazes me that those arguing that AGW is a problem are accused of “fear-mongering” and “alarmism” when the arguments are actually based on a ton of sound peer-reviewed science. But, those on the other side can make statements like this unsupported by any real evidence that I know of. What are you basing it on?
The history of dealing with pollution or other environmental problems is that the only way you can deal with it is exactly by mandates. These problems don’t cure themselves because there is no market pressures as long as the the problems remain externalized from the market. That is why, in order to get the necessary technologies developed, one has to have the governments giving the companies the cues that we are in a carbon-constrained world. Even many companies are now arguing this.
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Sheesh. It’s pure speculation. Which is necessary for an apples-to-apples comparison to the disaster scenarios presented by folks on the other side.
Now please show me the peer-reviewed science supporting the claim that AGW is a signficant threat to the houses and lives of billions of human beings.
First of all, I don’t agree. Not entirely, anyway. I don’t deny that there are market failures due to externalities when it comes to pollution. But not every pollution problem or energy problem is an externality.
Specifically, we’re talking about efficiency, because the crux of the argument we’re currently having is whether or not you can cut carbon emissions painlessly, by becoming more efficient in the use of energy. Efficiency is not an externality. It directly lowers the cost of energy to the company or person who is more efficient. And therefore, you don’t need government mandates to make everyone use energy more efficiently, unless you want them to be more efficient than makes economic sense. And if you do, then that will hurt the economy.
As you know, I’m not opposed to carbon taxes where they are used to correct real externalities. But I’m under no illusion that we’ll get a worldwide carbon tax scheme that will lead to significant reductions in CO2. It just isn’t going to happen. China has already told us to go screw ourselves, and even the countries that are the most ardent supporters of Kyoto aren’t really taking the hard measures to reduce CO2 emissions.
I have yet to hear a practical plan from advocates that we ‘do something’ that will A) significantly ease the problem, B) has a chance of actually being adhered to on a scale that will make a difference, and C) won’t wreck the global economy.
Have you got one? If so, let’s debate it.
I didn’t say efficiency was the sole answer. Efficiency saves money and reduces consumption not to nothing but to a level which lower-emission generation technology should achieve within a few decades, but only given a commitment to the necessary action now. And that’s all Kyoto was, really: a promise to reduce emissions somehow.
Well, efficiency is cutting consumption. As for the infrastructure, our current power stations and other high emission sources will need replacing anyway over the next years and decades. I happen to disagree that nuclear stands up well to cost-benefit analysis in this respect (in fact I suspect that the reason reactionary conservatives favour it is because it winds up environmentalists) but if it’s the only low-carbon option which allows skeptics to save face then so be it.
I think I’ve heard of this concept before: isn’t it called “trade”?
In any case, look how fast the debate has switched from the OP’s question of whether IR-absorbing gases pose a threat to whether we can realistically do anything about it. It’s amazing how fast conservatives do this these days – I guess that’s progress of a sort.
[ul]
[li]CO2 concentrations have increased over 30% in mere generations from humans digging up carbon stores and burning them.[/li][li]CO2 absorbs IR wavelengths.[/li][li]Higher temperatures cause land-based ice to melt into the sea, and the sea itself to expand.[/li][li]Sea level rise threatens the lives and homes of the billions of people who live at sea level.[/li][li]Unless the warming effect of the IR absorption is mitigated by some mechanism or other, rising CO2 concentrations will pose a significant threat to the lives and homes of anyone living at sea level.[/ul][/li]Which of these premises, which are founded not merely in peer-reviewed science but the two-century old science of the greenhouse effect, do you deny? We could, of course, hold out for some mitigating mechanism, but we would then require you to set forth peer-reviewed evidence that such a mechanism was actually happening.
Well, a commitment to take the issue seriously would be a start, together with a commitment to measure IR-absorbing emissions as accurately as possible. From then on, simply institute policies which offer the best cost-benefit ratio, emissions wise. This can include nuclear (which, as I said to Sam, I don’t really understand the conservative hard-on for anyway), or carbon sequestration/trading, or anything which offers a chance of stabilising the concentration below around 550ppm this century somehow, but efficiency and renewables go a heck of a long way in this respect.
Read the IPCC reports. Working group II report talks about the potential effects of AGW. And, the Working Group III report talks about the expected costs of mitigation, which over the next 50 years are expected to be less than 0.12% GDP growth per year for the most aggressive stabilization scenario that they considered (stabilizing greenhouse gas levels at 445-535 ppm CO2-equivalent).
For the record, this depends. For example, if temperature of ice increases from 41 below to 39 below, it will not melt. At the same, a temperature increase might cause increased precipitation over cold places like Antarctica, increasing the ice coverage. Did you know that ice coverage in Antartica recently hit an all time high? (since the late 70s when measurements began).
So it’s not clear that an increase in tempearture would cause sea levels to rise by means of melting ice.
That obviously depends on the rate and magnitude of the rise.
Please show me peer-reviewed evidence that CO2 emissions will cause a rise in sea levels of a magnitude and rate sufficient to be a significant threat to the lives of billions of people.
Could you please quote the section and references you are referring to?
As Sam Stone noted, there is no such thing as “proof” outside the realm of deductive reasoning (i.e., mathematics). In science, there is just the preponderance of the evidence or, as you say, “beyond a reasonable doubt”. It’s a difficult task you’ve set since it would take a lot of reading (which you say he is not up for) in order to really understand the scientific evidence.
But, anyway, here are a few resources:
I gave links to the IPCC report in my preceding post. In particular, the IPCC also has various presentations here. I haven’t looked at them so I don’t know how useful they are.
One good thing to read that is not too long (although not that short either) and involved is the Scientific American article that Jim Hansen wrote a few years ago.
If I had to review the basic scientific argument for AGW, it would go something like this: We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that since the industrial revolution, the levels of greenhouse gases have been rising significantly. In particular, CO2 levels have gone up from about 280 to 380 ppm, which is well outside the range of ~180-300 ppm that they have varied in over the last 750,000 years (as ice core data shows). We also know quite accurately the radiative effects of this, i.e., for example that the “radiative forcing” depends logarithmically on the CO2 level and increases by ~3.8 W/m^2 when CO2 levels in the atmosphere double.
We also know what effect such a change in radiative forcing would have on the average global temperature in the absence of “feedback effects”, i.e., if CO2 were doubled and everything else in the complex climate system were held the same. That is about 1.2 degree Celsius (~2 degrees Fahrenheit).
The most important feedbacks that we know of are: (1) As the temperatures warm, more water evaporates so the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere increases. This causes more warming because water vapor is itself a greenhouse gas. Hence, this is a “positive feedback” that magnifies the warming. (2) As sea and land ice and snow melt because of warming, the earth’s surface becomes less reflective to sunlight and hence more energy from the sun is absorbed causing further warming. This is another positive feedback. (3) As the temperature warms, there are also effects on clouds (which is water vapor that condenses in the atmosphere). This is complicated because although there is more water vapor in the atmosphere, warm air can also hold more water vapor before it condenses, so it is not so easy to say if the cloudiness will increase or decrease. Furthermore, clouds have complicated effects since they both reflect incoming solar radiation (which would tend to cause cooling) but also reflect outgoing infrared radiation (which would tend to cause warming). So, the net effect of changes in clouds overall is uncertain although I think the best estimates are that it is pretty close to “a wash”.
The total effect of all the feedbacks in the climate system is admittedly very difficult to calculate. However, the best estimate from climate models is that they multiply the warming due to CO2 alone by somewhere between a factor of 1.5 and a factor of 4, i.e., that they cause the warming due to doubling CO2 to be in the range of 2 C to 4.5 C (~3.5 F to 8 F). Furthermore, various observations can also be used (often with the aid of climate models) to provide checks on whether this so-called “climate sensitivity” is accurate. These include looking at the 20th century global temperature record, looking at the reaction of temperatures to major volcanic eruptions (like Mt. Pinatubo in the early 1990s) which cause a temporary cooling, and looking further back in time to things like the transition between ice ages and the warmer interglacial periods (like we are now in). Estimates of the climate sensitivity from such studies tend to lie in the same general range.
Finally, in regards to observations of warming and what they are attributable to. The IPCC has concluded that the fact that we have seen warming over the last 100 years or so is “unequivocal” and that there is a greater than 90% chance that most of the warming seen over the last ~50 years (which is most of the warming seen over the last century) is due to the human-caused increase in greenhouse gases.
Here is a good summary in Wikipedia on the general scientific opinion on global warming and, in particular, the IPCC’s conclusions. Note that the list of scientific organizations that have endorsed tehse conclusions is impressive, including the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the analogous bodies in the major industrialized nations, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (which bills itself as “the world’s largest general scientific society”), the American Geophysical Society, the American Meteorological Society, the American Physical Society, …